In the practice of emergency medicine and the treatment of trauma it is common for a patient to lose consciousness and the ability to maintain open airways and respiration. Loss of respiration is often fatal. There are several methods known in the art for maintaining open airways. All invasive methods to maintain an open airway involve devices that are inserted into the airway and mechanically supply an open tube aimed to maintain an open airway. One invasive technique is surgical cricothyroidotomy involving the insertion of a tube through the neck of the patient. Other invasive techniques involve tracheal intubation or laryngeal mask. The non-invasive way to protect the airway in trauma patients is by manually pushing the jaw forward. This becomes much more complicated in a case when a helmet removal is required, e.g., in a road traffic accident that involves a motorcyclist or any other incidents involving a patient with a helmet on.
In the practice of emergency medicine it is known that unsafe to attempt to remove the helmet of a motorcyclist who has been injured in a road traffic accident. Doing so could exacerbate any spinal injury the rider may have suffered, which could lead to serious paralysis or even death. But there are times when removing the helmet is unavoidable if the injured rider's life is to be saved, such as when the rider has stopped breathing and an emergency resuscitation must be perform.
There is therefore a need to open an airway without removing the helmet and to maintain open airways, as suffocation condition, is highly damaging, often fatal, and usually irreversible. Therefore there is a need for a novel helmet device to enable opening of the airways.
There are techniques known in the art for maintaining open airways by maintaining an open mouth, but none of them refer to a wearer of a helmet, such as a motorcyclist.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a non-invasive airway opening device for a helmet that facilitates both opening of the airway as well as monitoring of the throat following a traumatic event without removing the helmet off the wearer's head.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.